The Biggest Mistakes People Make When Trying to Eat Healthy
Most of us are ready to eat healthier (myself included as I count how many meals I’ve eaten this week using Nutella), but we often get it wrong. If you find yourself hungry and tired, or just constantly losing your way, you might want to check to see if you’re making these common mistakes.
By the way, I will not discuss the biggest mistake, since we have already covered it in detail: confusing healthy eating with diet . Whether you gain or lose weight depends on how much food you eat, but everyone needs and deserves plenty of nutrients and variety in their diet, no matter which direction the scale goes. So, let’s assume that you have internalized this message, and now we will consider the following two important points:
Protein deficiency
It’s important to eat enough to stay healthy, and getting enough protein is a big part of that. A healthy diet will contain enough protein to help you maintain and repair your body’s cells. If you exercise – and you should! Protein will help you recover and build muscle. To put some numbers into perspective, a 200-pound person would need to eat at least 72 grams of protein a day just to subsist, 108 or more if they run a lot or play endurance sports, and 120 or more if they lift weights. (You can see calculations and other examples here .)
But when we try to eat healthy, protein often takes a backseat. Vegetables and whole grains contain some protein, but often not enough on their own. If you eat plant foods and don’t pay attention to the protein content, you can easily end up without enough protein in your diet. It’s the same if you’re eating smaller meals and forgoing the protein sources you’re used to: Swapping a hamburger for a salad often means cutting that meal’s protein content to near zero.
When you don’t eat enough protein, you may feel weak and tired . You may also be hungrier, have hair and nail problems, and be more susceptible to certain diseases. You may have trouble gaining muscle mass in the gym, or if you lead a sedentary lifestyle, you may lose muscle mass. Losing muscle mass is a health issue, especially for the elderly, so protein isn’t just for the dumb-headed.
Setting strict rules (which you constantly break)
Healthy eating often starts with a plan… and ends when we don’t follow through. All the research on recipes and cooking in the world cannot change the fact that you are a human being with your own needs, desires and taste buds.
Maybe you aspire to be the ultimate god-like being who is content with chickpeas and quinoa, who would never dream of touching a bottle of beer or hot fudge ice cream. But that is your aspiration, not your reality. If you limit something for no reason, you will stray from your plan, then beat yourself up, come back and repeat the process. In extreme cases, this can exacerbate the tendency to have eating disorders .
The truth is that our results depend on what we eat and do, and not only on what we do right or solely on what we do wrong. The stricter the rules we try to follow, the less time we will be able to follow them. You may be proud of yourself for completing 75Hard or Whole30 , but these over-limiting challenges last for several days – hence the numbers in the names. “Mostly pretty good for the next 50 years” is much less catchy, but ultimately that’s what healthy eating really means.